Where the Heart Is
by An Inferno
Summary: A couple of embarrassingly domestic vignettes. Rule 63!ShisuixItachi. Discontinued.
1. Wherever I'm With You, Kakashi&Shisui

**A/N: **Part of a series of vignettes. Warnings for this chapter are genderbend, vague one-sided het (if you squint), and language. Beta'd by yiraheerai on LJ.

* * *

Shisui grunted, hoisting an unconscious Kakashi's arm more securely over her shoulder. He made an indistinguishable noise against her neck, knees sagging. She adjusted him again and started towards the elevator.

In retrospect, the spiked heels had been a really terrible idea, but she hadn't expected to be doing anything more strenuous than standing around for a while politely declining cocktails and nursing a can of soda from the downstairs vending machine, and all her flat shoes were from Timberland or the skate shop across from Starbucks anyway.

"...You draw the short straw tonight, Shisui?"

The voice belonged to one of the paralegals-the suck-up one, Izumo, with the emo hair. He was leaning against the wall, looking at her sympathetically; Kotetsu, the smart-ass paralegal who might as well have been Izumo's parasitic twin, was on his left side. Judging by the grin on his face, he found the whole affair considerably more amusing than Izumo did.

Shisui paused, hoisting Kakashi into a more stable position. Again. She fought the instinct to cringe at the smell of cheap vodka on his breath. "You know I'm always DD. Not really the partying type."

Kotetsu laughed, a good-natured, warm sound, and she started to smile back when his eyes locked on her chest.

"I'll say you're a DD, Shisui," he said, the words weighty with innuendo. Izumo dug his elbow into Kotetsu's side; Shisui struggled against her knee-jerk first reaction, which was to drop Kakashi and ram her forearm into Kotetsu's throat.

_Calm down. He's annoying, but harmless,_ she told herself, and started walking towards the elevator again, barking a humorless laugh over her shoulder to get across the message that she was _not at all amused by this misogynistic fuckery_. Kakashi lifted his head from her shoulder, stumbling a little at the change in angle.

"She can and will castrate you if you keep on like that," he slurred, and dropped his head back on her shoulder like nothing had happened. "She'll probably win the court case, too."

Shisui smiled, adjusted Kakashi again, and finished her trek to the elevator, squeezing his wrist affectionately.

"Hey, Izumo, you mind hiding her letter opener tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'm not going anywhere near her desk. You might consider investing in a good jockstrap, though. Or a chastity belt."

"...Thank you so much for your unending support."

"It's your own fault for poking a sleeping dragon with a sharp stick."

Kakashi dropped the 'unconscious' act as soon as they made it into the parking garage, taking most of his own weight. He kept his hand on Shisui's shoulder for the sake of balance; he might not have been piss-drunk, but he was still too plastered to drive, and his head buzzed noisily.

"Keys," Shisui said, stopping outside the passenger side of Kakashi's beat-up toyota. He dug into his pocket and handed them to her; she stuck them in the lock, grumbling about ancient death-traps with hand-crank windows, then pulled open his door for him.

"If you puke, I'm not cleaning it up," she said cheerfully, slamming the door. He could faintly hear the _click-click_ of her heels echoing in the parking garage as she made her way around to the driver's side.

She opened the door and slid in, shutting it with a slam that echoed longer and louder than her shoes.

...Kakashi had to be really drunk, if he was angsting over the sound of a pair of stilettos.

Shisui sat for a moment in the driver's seat, her head back against the rest, eyes closed, chin tilted up to bare her long, white throat. A chain glinted at the base of it-the pendant wasn't visible, but Kakashi knew that it was a small lotus flower, cheaply done in cubic zirconium, but it was pretty. He'd given it to her for her twenty-fifth birthday.

"You okay?" he asked, voice rough and jarring in the muted silence of the car. Shisui opened one eye and glanced lazily at him, dark red lips pulling together into a humorless smile. She sat up and buckled her seat belt, then stuck the key in the ignition.

"I'm fine. It's not like I don't get it every goddamn time I leave my apartment," she said, tone flippant-but it was definitely bothering her more than she was letting on. She'd known exactly what he was talking about without missing a beat.

It was probably the alcohol, but he couldn't see a reason to stop staring at her as she backed out of the parking space and drove his car with an ease that came with decades of carpooling. At this point, she knew the car almost better than he did. Like a baby, only without the diaper-changing and midnight feedings. Or the sex.

…_really_ fucking plastered.

He zoned out to the image of her profile, her eyes fixed on the road, dark hair curling around the nape of her neck, jaw clenched so minutely she probably didn't even realize it herself. Bars of light moved over her face as they passed streetlamps, lights from buildings, lights from police cars.

Eight years ago, she'd been beautiful, clutching his hand like it was her only anchor to sanity as she stared at the glittering buildings on the Cambridge side of the Charles. The lights in their particular subway car had gone out; the streetlamps and the glow from the city-scape had been the only respite from the darkness. They'd made the tears on her face stand out brilliantly, almost as bright as the lights themselves.

She was still beautiful, but the years had hardened her. Kakashi couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her cry. But when you'd been with someone for fifteen-odd years, you got to know the little signs that meant they weren't okay, even when they were doing their best to keep their mask on for the rest of the world.

He let his hand flop over the edge of his seat until the back of it brushed against Shisui's. Her fingers twitched lightly, then relaxed, and when he looked back up again, her jaw had loosened a little.

The rest of the trip passed in silence, but the warmth of Kakashi's hand against hers made the very important distinction between 'painful silence' and 'comfortable silence'. Sometimes, Shisui wondered if her life would be easier if she were interested in his equipment; he had been there for every single major life trauma she'd been through, and his quiet support through all of it had him firmly associated with 'safety' in her mind.

But they'd been there already, and it had failed miserably. The important part was the companionship, even if there was the occasional look held a little too long, or silence a little bit more uncomfortable than safe.

She backed his car into his driveway and turned off the ignition. Kakashi had fallen asleep on the way, his head sagging against his shoulder. Not once had his hand dropped from where it was touching hers.

She felt her mouth pull into a smile, and shook him by the shoulder. He startled, sitting up rigidly, and turned to look at her, eyes bloodshot.

"...Guy is going to kill me," he said casually. Shisui laughed and reached over, ruffling his hair. He rolled his eyes and unbelted, opening the car door.

Shisui followed, shivering a little as she stepped into the bitingly chill air. "I am really glad I don't have a way to get home until tomorrow. You think he'll let me listen in, or try to sequester you off somewhere to lecture you about your uncool behavior?"

Kakashi walked towards the front walk, lightly catching Shisui's elbow as he passed her. "Ice," he said, and his other hand went to the small of her back. "Not the best thing in the world to pair with stilettos."

Guy had dutifully scattered the front walk with ice melt, but Shisui let Kakashi's hand stay resting on her back. It was warm, and the night was fucking freezing.

The door was unlocked, as usual, and they hustled inside and slammed it shut to keep out the frigid air. Not that it was much warmer inside; Kakashi's housemate believed in keeping the thermostat at sixty-five to save the planet and prove the strength of his constitution. When Kakashi had complained, Guy had knit him an enormous, lumpy sweater and matching socks out of bright green uruguay wool. Shisui had kidnapped the sweater when it became apparent Kakashi was never going to wear it; she had boobs of steel, which made her look cute in basically everything. He'd kept the socks, though, which was a shame, especially if they were as warm as the sweater.

Shisui kicked off her heels, letting out a sigh as her feet hit the floor at a normal angle for the first time in six hours. She hung her coat on an empty peg and wandered out of the mudroom, the hardwood floor cold through her nylons.

"You can borrow something of mine to sleep in," Kakashi called, still in the process of unlacing his own shoes. "The toothbrush you used last time you stayed is still in the downstairs bathroom-"

"Welcome home, rival!"

Shisui made for the stairs, chuckling as Guy's heavy footsteps thudded into the front hall from somewhere near the back of the house-probably the kitchen.

"-an invigorating, youthful party-? ...Kakashi, are you _intoxicated?_"

"Ah, more like buzzed. I'm fine, really-"

"THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT WHEN I TOLD YOU TO EMBRACE YOUR INNER YOUTH!"

The strains of Guy's lecture on the uncoolness of death by alcohol poisoning, punctuated by gravelly, sarcastic counterpoints from Kakashi, carried all the way upstairs and drowned out the last insistent vestiges of the past trying to worm inside Shisui's mind, leaving a warm, fuzzed-over feeling to pool in her stomach.

There was something about a girl wrapped up in your sweatpants and one of your shirts, the waistband of the pants hanging loosely around her full hips, the collar of the shirt threatening to slip off her shoulder.

Kakashi was very, very deliberately not thinking about the way the front of his shirt stretched over her chest. What Kotetsu said had been assy, sure, but it had also been _true_; she was curvy all over, balancing out her tits, but they still drew the eye. Fact of nature.

But the last thing Shisui needed was yet another person on the list of people who said hello to her breasts, so he ignored them and focused on the rat's nest of her hair and the faint stain of lipstick that she hadn't been able to wipe off completely. He pressed his thumb into the arch of her foot, and she hissed softly, pushing against his hand.

"I fucking hate high heels," she mumbled, pressing her forearm against her eyes. "Gimme construction boots any day. I don't care how dykey they make me look."

"Well, you are a dyke. Shouldn't be that unexpected for you to look the part," Kakashi mused, pressing harder. "Although, the lipstick look suits you, too. You should femme up more often."

Shisui grinned and kicked his stomach. "Don't push it. If I thought I could get away with flannel in court, I'd be the happiest woman alive." She tipped her head back against the pillow Guy had laid out for her and closed her eyes, sighing. Her jaw was slack.

Kakashi rested his hand over her ankle, watching the rise and fall of her stomach as she breathed. "It's a sign of maturity, you know. I seem to remember sneakers and a track suit the first three Christmas parties Obito dragged me to."

Shisui didn't open her eyes, but she did reach down and wrap her fingers around Kakashi's arm.

"He was the fun cousin," she said, quietly. "You know, I never told him why I broke up with you. He was _furious_-didn't speak to me for a month." She opened one eye. "But I have a feeling if I'd told him, he would have been on my side."

"Never understood how your parents could have a daughter like you and give you up voluntarily." Shisui's thumb moved in a semi-circle across the underside of Kakashi's arm. He shot her a smile. "They're still having those Christmas parties, you know. I drive by on my way to the grocery store. You should go."

Shisui laughed, hand falling from Kakashi's arm. The place where it had been prickled with the sudden loss of warmth.

"Throw it in their faces now that I have my shiny new career and my shiny new law degree? Sounds fucking ace," she said, kicking Kakashi in the stomach again. "Kinda wish Obito could be here to see it."

Kakashi lifted Shisui's feet from his lap and stood, laying them back down on the couch. He pulled the heavy spare comforter over her legs and wrapped it around her shoulders, pausing with his hand there.

"He would have been proud of you, Shisui," he said, leaning forward to kiss her forehead, briefly. Her skin was warm under his mouth.

He straightened up and turned to leave, but the brush of her fingers against his wrist stopped him. He glanced back over his shoulder, breath quickening slightly at the sight of her on her side, curled under the blankets.

"Goodnight, jackass," she murmured, and let her hand drop.

"Goodnight, you humorless feminazi," he said back as she closed her eyes, then reached out and punched him in the hip with unnerving accuracy.

"Get the hell outta here," she said sleepily, pulling the blankets over her head.

Kakashi padded out of the living room and towards the stairs, switching off lights as he went. He left the one in the living room, where Shisui was sleeping, on as dimly as it would go, just in case.


	2. Louder Than Sirens, ShisuixItachi

The Uchiha family was one of rigid structure and harsh punishments for rule-breakers. There were certain things you just _did not say,_ certain things you just _did not do,_ certain subjects you just _did not broach_ if you valued the honor of the family at large—and in keeping with their Japanese heritage, the Uchiha family valued honor above everything else.

One of the many taboo subjects under any self-respecting Uchiha's roof was body modification. Satsuki Uchiha was thirteen years old and desperately wanted to get her ears pierced, but Fugaku had forbidden her, and Mikoto—whose lobes remained holeless, even in her adulthood—stood behind him like always. Satsuki had thrown several temper tantrums, gone on hunger strike, and even threatened to pierce her own ears with safety pins; upon hearing the last one, Inari took matters into her own hands.

She asked quietly around campus, collected phone number after phone number, and visited seven different establishments before deciding on the Persimmon Tattoo Parlor, run by a man named Kisame with fish gills inked onto his cheekbones and teeth filed into sharp points.

"Are you sure about this guy?" Hana Inuzuka, Inari's roommate, whispered as they walked into the shop for Inari's first appointment.

"His ink and needles are clean, and his work is excellent," Inari replied, passing her ID to the young man behind the counter—Kisame's reluctant apprentice and frequent guinea pig, Suigetsu. "Those factors greatly increase the likelihood that I will be satisfied with the final product and that it will heal without complications."

Suigetsu handed Inari her ID and jerked his head over his shoulder. "Thataway. Boss-man should be all set up for ya. Your friend coming in for moral support, or is she gonna wait out here and keep me entertained?" He grinned widely, an unsettling expression; Suigetsu also had his teeth filed.

Hana wrinkled her nose in disgust, wrapping her arm around Inari's neck. "I wouldn't strike up a voluntary conversation with you if you were my only hope against death by festering skin disease."

"Ch, have it your way," Suigetsu muttered, arranging himself into a petulant sulk and disappearing behind the counter again. Inari walked past the curtain that divided the working area from the front of the shop, and Hana followed close behind her.

Kisame glanced up from the tattoo gun he was fiddling with, face splitting into a grin. Inari felt Hana tense behind her.

"Inari! Glad you could make it," Kisame said, gesturing to the leather chair next to his stool. His voice was light and cheery, but with just a shade of something predatory.

(Inari often wondered about her apparent lack of a survival instinct. Since childhood, she had been romanced by the dangers that made her peers flee—perhaps it was the lack of excitement she felt for things like college entrance exams. Danger to her physical body was one of few things she found legitimately frightening, and thus she sought it out for the novelty of experiencing fear.)

She took the proffered seat and lay her arm out, wrist up. Hana stood near her shoulder.

"Below the elbow?" Kisame asked. Inari nodded once in confirmation. Kisame snapped on a pair of latex gloves and a face mask, then rubbed off Inari's arm with a disinfectant wipe. "Same design we talked about, right?"

"Yes," Inari said. Kisame picked up the tattoo gun and began, the needles buzzing as they moved over her arm. She closed her eyes and relaxed, letting the stinging burn radiate through her body.

The tattoo was entirely free-hand and took three appointments to complete, with the final shading being finished two days before Inari went home for winter break. The skin was pink and sore, but Inari kept it meticulously bandaged, cleaned, and moisturized, and it was free from infection. It was stunning now, and would be even more so once it had healed over and the colors had softened.

When it came to her little sister, Inari demanded perfection, and the tattoo was as close to perfect as could could be reasonably expected.

–

_Calm down, _Shisui told herself, eyes fixed out the bus window but focused on nothing in particular. She was a twenty-eight-year-old woman with a degree in criminal prosecution; she could handle a family Christmas party, no problem.

...Of course, the whole 'disowned' thing might put a bit of a damper on the festivities.

Shisui twitched her foot nervously. _If it's that terrible, I'll call Kakashi and have him come get me. _

She could do this.

Really.

Her stomach twisted when the driver announced that this was her stop. She picked up her briefcase and stepped off the bus, into the frigid air.

"Hi, Mom, remember me? When I was sixteen, you decided I wasn't your daughter anymore because I liked pussy. Oh, why am I ruining your party with my evil lesbian presence?"

She kicked a lump of snow toward the street, wincing when some of it broke off and slipped inside her pumps. "No reason, just happened to be going in the opposite direction from my apartment on the way home from work and figured I'd try to infect you all with the gay."

She managed to shake the snow from her shoe and kept walking, staring deliberately into the distance. She picked up speed to try and instill a false sense of courage. She just had to keep walking until she was through the door, and not turn around and run away like a child.

"Have I mentioned I'm a prosecution attorney with a degree from Harvard Law?"

A prosecution attorney with a degree from Harvard Law, which she had attended on full scholarship. Shisui took a left, and there it was; her parents' house, tastefully decorated with white lights, several cars parked out front.

She could do this.

...for some reason, as she stepped onto the front walk, she heard Kakashi's voice in her head. It was a vague memory—something he'd said recently, but not soon enough for her to remember. Something about ice.

Then the world was sideways and a door slammed open, and a female voice gasped, loudly.

"Shisui-san!" Shoes tapped swiftly, but carefully down the steps and across the walk.

That was it.

"Ice and stilettos are a terrible combination," Shisui recalled, snow seeping through her coat where it was now getting very intimate with a patch of black ice. Her ankle throbbed and her ass ached, but nothing was numb, which meant no breaks. The woman crouched down next to Shisui and took her arm, concern swimming in her dark eyes. Shisui tried to smile, but suspected it came out as more of a grimace. "Hey, Aunt Mikoto."

–

"Given how your name is written, I thought it would be appropriate," Inari explained, bandage peeled back to display the tattoo.

Satsuki blushed, her face twisting into a scowl as though to negate the fact that she'd been blushing in the first place. "I still think it was really dumb to get inked just so Dad would let me pierce my ears," she groused, one hand reaching up towards her red earlobe. Inari caught her by the wrist and raised an eyebrow.

"They'll get infected if you keep touching them," she said, and Satsuki rolled her eyes, but there was a pleased smile underneath. Inari smiled back, warm, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Satsuki's ear.

The kitchen door opened, then, and Mikoto blustered in, nose pink like she'd been out in the cold. Inari quickly re-adjusted the bandage over her tattoo and stood, moving to her mother's side.

"You okay, Mom?" Satsuki asked, pushing back her own chair. Mikoto smiled, and the expression was calm and collected; Inari searched for a hint of strain, but there was none. Whatever it was, it wasn't an emergency.

"Inari-chan, you remember your cousin Shisui," Mikoto said, and the name flashed recognition in Inari's mind—_she looked at Satsuki the same way I did—_she swallowed, once.

"I remember her," she said. Satsuki glanced at Mikoto, then at Inari, face blank with confusion.

"Who?" she asked, but Mikoto was already at the refrigerator, picking through the freezer. She found a bag of frozen stir-fry and handed it to Inari. It stung, cold against her fingers.

"Take these out to her. She's in the living room—she fell and hurt her ankle coming up the walk," Mikoto said. She shoved a bag of frozen peas in Satsuki's hands, as well. "She bruised her hip, too. I should have started the bean curd an hour ago..." and she was off, rummaging through cupboards and turning on the stove.

"Who's Shisui?" Satsuki asked again, a hint of distaste in her voice. She didn't particularly like being ignored; Inari tended to assume it came with being thirteen and let it slide. She took Satsuki's wrist and pulled her from the kitchen toward the living room, heart thudding in her chest.

"Come and meet her for yourself," Inari said. Her voice came out weak and tremulous, like she'd been running long distances or taken a hit in the diaphragm.

_Early September, a woman under her arm and her smile so bright I was ill for days. Safety, the bark pressing against my back until her laughter had been gone for long minutes. _

–

Shisui's mother hadn't moved or spoken since Mikoto had helped her limp inside. Junko sat in a chair near the electric fireplace, her hands folded in her lap, ankles delicately crossed. The only thing that betrayed her emotional state was the tight clench of her jaw.

Mikoto had disappeared into the kitchen after helping Shisui onto the couch, saying something about ice and fried tofu; Uncle Fugaku grabbed a chair for Shisui to prop her swollen ankle on. Then everything was silent for long, tense moments.

It was Fugaku who finally broke the silence, his voice booming and severe as Shisui had remembered.

"I heard that you attended Harvard, Shisui-san," he said, seated awkwardly in a folding chair near the couch.

"Yeah. Got my law degree there, too," she said. Junko's finger twitched in her lap. Shisui's ankle throbbed painfully.

"My older daughter just completed her first semester there." Fugaku smiled, stony expression loosening slightly. His older daughter was Inari; Shisui remembered a few shocked whispers tied to that name. _Three years old and reading by herself—that girl is so bright, just like her parents—a true Uchiha._

Shisui had only spoken to the kid once, when Fugaku's younger daughter was born; she'd been small and fair, cheeks soft with baby fat that should have been dimpled with childish glee. She hadn't smiled once, her little face almost as severe as her parents'. Shisui had pitied her—hit with the no-fun gene so early, god_damn._

She shifted her weight to take a little pressure off the sore part of her ass. "Oh, yeah? How's she like it?"

Fugaku nodded once. "She is majoring in English and maintaining a 4.0 GPA," he said, and Shisui bit down on her tongue to keep herself from snarking—_I didn't ask how she was performing, I asked how she _liked _it—_and forced a smile.

"Well, I hope she's enjoying it there, too—"

"Not everyone wishes to spend their time at the most prestigious academic institution in the world _partying,_ Shisui."

...well, it was heartening to know that the nightmares Shisui had about her mother's voice taking down countries weren't entirely fabricated.

Shisui grinned as sweetly as she could manage, opening her mouth to retort, but then two girls burst into the living room from the kitchen. The one in front was shorter, and held the other by her wrist; in her other hand she was holding a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables. There was a wide bandage across her arm.

For a minute, Shisui couldn't place where the hell she'd seen the shorter one before. She was insistently familiar, but there was no way in _hell_ Shisui could ever have forgotten a face that pretty—delicate and fine-featured, with dark, dark gray eyes, her skin so white she looked like a little china doll—the only flaw seemed to be the deep circles under her eyes.

Deep circles.

Harvard student.

_Inari. _

The girl moved closer to her, and Shisui could see that she was trembling slightly, her small fingers shaking as she gently laid the ice pack over Shisui's ankle.

"I'm not sure if you remember me," she said, and dear god her _voice, _low and raspy—did she smoke? "I'm—"

"Holy _shit,_ you grew up pretty," Shisui breathed, heart jumping into her throat at the feel of that tiny, tiny wrist under her fingers. Inari's skin was cool and soft, and her lips made an absolutely perfect 'o' as she sucked in a surprised breath.

...the rest of the room had gone quiet, and slowly Shisui began to feel the weight of her entire family's gazes focused on her, or more specifically, on her hand wrapped around Inari's wrist.

She coughed and let go, settling back against the couch and avoiding direct eye contact. Inari rubbed the wrist Shisui had let go, thin shoulders rigid.

"Are you a lesbian?"

The voice came from the taller girl. Shisui hadn't paid attention to her, too focused on Inari's beauty; the girl's face was a little softer than Inari's, and her hair was darker, but other than that the resemblance was uncanny. Except for the scowl, and the razor haircut, and the pounds of eyeliner.

Shisui grinned and rested her elbow on the back of the couch. "Don't tell me you're little Satsuki. You were a new baby the last time I saw you." Satsuki flushed red to the roots of her hair and scowled harder—she'd be thirteen now, the age of self-consciousness and coolness above everything else, and baby stories were most definitely not cool.

"I'm not little," Satsuki muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. "You didn't answer my question."

...She was also either highly perceptive, or completely obsessed with sex as a byproduct of puberty. On the one hand, she was an Uchiha and genius was in her blood, but on the other, the hormones rolling off her in waves were practically tangible. It didn't really matter either way—because she was still _right._

"Yes, actually. Your aunt Junko disowned me for it," Shisui said cheerfully. The adults in the room took a collective breath in, imploring her _not to go there for the love of all things holy_; she ignored it. Satsuki's blush went down slightly, and she thrust the bag of frozen peas into Shisui's hand.

"That's kind of cool," she said. "Don't do anything creepy to my sister." Then she turned and left, unfazed. Junko, who had been getting whiter and whiter in the face, stood up and stalked towards the stairs, and a few moments later a door slammed. Slowly, the room's other occupants began talking amongst themselves, any subject they could think of to avoid discussing what had just occurred. All of them very deliberately avoided looking in Shisui's direction.

Inari sat on the couch cushion next to Shisui, pinching the bridge of her nose. "The peas are for your hip, Shisui-san," she said helplessly. "I am so sorry about my sister. She's a little...callous sometimes."

"Don't even. I was way worse when I was thirteen," Shisui said, her hand falling to the back of Inari's neck. She twisted a few strands of hair idly between her fingers. "I meant it, though. You're beautiful."  
Inari's face pinkened, then, not as impressively as Satsuki's; more delicate. Shisui's fingers twitched against her neck. She smiled, a small, tentative thing, and stared at her hands folded in her lap.

"I'm happy to know that your beauty wasn't a figment of my imagination," she said, voice a low murmur that hit the center of Shisui's chest.

"Good genes." Shisui ran her fingers through the bottom of Inari's hair, perfectly straight and clinging elegantly to the back of her neck. "Your dad said you're at Harvard?"

Inari nodded, looking at Shisui for a moment out of the corner of her eye, then she flushed a little and looked back down at her lap.

"Yes, I just finished my first semester," Inari said. Her fingers picked at the edge of the bandage, scratching lightly. "It's been an interesting experience."

Shisui pressed her fingers into the back of Inari's neck. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. "I had a roommate who tried to hang herself after her first final. It's a tough place."

Inari turned to look at Shisui, eyes narrowed. Shisui reached down and lightly touched the edge of the bandage. For a moment, Inari was silent, then her eyes widened with comprehension. She flushed pink again.

"Oh, this isn't—I didn't—" She exhaled, shakily, and her fingers trembled as she reached for the edge of the bandage and peeled it back. Underneath it wasn't a healing scar—and Shisui felt her jaw relax and her stomach start to unclench—it was three round, white morning glories, the vine twisting down the inside of her forearm. She smiled, looking down at the raw skin. "'Satsuki' is written with the kanji for 'blossom' and 'moon'. Morning glories are colloquially known as moonflowers."

Shisui brushed the tip of her finger against Inari's arm, close to the tattoo, but not touching; it couldn't be more than a week or so old, and would still be sore. Inari's breath hitched minutely.

"Beautiful," Shisui murmured. "I have one, too, on my back. It's a lotus—I got it when I graduated law school."

"New beginnings and struggles you've overcome?" Inari asked, looking at the tattoo for a moment more before pulling the bandage back in place. "I considered it myself, but the tattoo was mostly a device to soften my father to the idea of Satsuki piercing her ears. Getting it for her seemed the most fitting course of action."

Shisui wrapped her arm around Inari's shoulders, lightly running her fingers against the dark red of her blouse. "Tattoos are like potato chips, darlin'. There's always the next one."

Inari tucked her hair behind her ear, still avoiding Shisui's eyes, though leaned a little into the pressure of her arm. "Do you have more than one?"

Shisui had a predatory streak, and Inari was trembling like a frightened rabbit, but there was something else in the way she leaned closer. Fear, and a little bit of excitement as well. It thrilled all the way down Shisui's spine.

"Not yet," she said, reaching over with her free hand to tilt Inari's face towards her. Inari's breathing picked up again, and her dark eyes went a little wider. Shisui met it with a grin. "I've been waiting for the right inspiration." 


End file.
